Claymore: Chapter 1 – The Burden of the Blade is a DVD that contains the first five episodes of the series. The episodes of Claymore included on the disc are: “Great Sword,” “The Black Card,” “The Darkness in Paradise,” “Clare’s Awakening,” and “Teresa of the Faint Smile.”

The main menu of the disc contains the following options: “Play All,” “Episodes,” “Audio,” and “Extras.” “Play All” allows you to play all of the episodes on the disc back-to-back. “Episodes” allows you to choose which episode you want to watch, as well as where in the episode you want to begin watching. “Audio” allows you to choose whether you want to hear the English or the Japanese audio, and you can also choose whether or not to have English subtitles on the screen. “Extras” is a link to the menu for the bonus features.

The first extra is audio commentary for “Great Sword,” the first episode of the series. The second bonus feature is trailers for other DVD releases from FUNimation Entertainment. The trailers that are included in the “Trailers” menu of the “Extras” section are promotional pieces for Black Blood Brothers, Basilisk, Jyu-Oh-Sei, Vexile, Kitaro, xxxHolic, Claymore, and Darker Than Black.

The next feature is labeled as “Cast Auditions.” These are the auditions for the English dub voices for the following characters: Clare, Teresa, Rubel, Sid, and Yomi. When you choose which audition you want to hear, a still image of the character is shown on the screen, with the name of the character and the voice actor superimposed on the bottom of the screen. The audio is run over the still image. In this feature, the audio runs anywhere from thirty seconds to one minute in length. The final feature on the disc is “Textless Songs.” This feature includes textless versions of the opening and closing credits.

Overall, Claymore: Chapter 1 – The Burden of the Blade is a decent release for a single disc DVD release. Personally, I thought the “Cast Auditions” bonus feature was a rather unique and interesting extra to include on the disc. If you’re a fan of Claymore, this would be a good item to purchase if you’re willing to buy an anime series as single volumes of DVDs, rather than buying a DVD box set. However, it should be noted that the individual discs run anywhere between $20 and $30 each. If you would rather purchase a DVD box set of the series, then the Claymore Complete Series Box Set would be for you. That is a six disc set that is retailing for about $60.

In order to write this review, I checked out a copy of the DVD through the King County Library System.